–Pupils at Durham Free School were taught creationism during science lessons, according to newspaper Schools Week.

The school, which has already been ordered to close by the Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan, has been accused of harbouring “prejudiced views” of children from other faiths that went unchallenged by teachers.

A teacher at the school reportedly asked Year 7 pupils to complete a worksheet as part of their science homework that stated: “Only the Earth has life on it. God has designed the solar system so that the Earth can support life.”

Any school, academy or free school that is found to teach Creationism as a scientific fact would be in breach of the law and its funding agreement.

Inspectors from education standards watchdog Ofsted also said that they had found evidence of bullying, poor standards in the classroom and financial mismanagement at the free school in investigations last month.Read more

Lucky for me that religious people in my country are considered…. ~”weird” :)
—(CNN)The man on the line sounds nervous.

He’s been a Christian for 20 years but can’t believe in the Bible anymore. He hasn’t told his friends or family and still sits, uneasy, in church each Sunday.

“I feel like I’m lying,” he tells the woman on the other end of the phone. “I’m pretending to be a person that I’m not.

“But what if I’m wrong?” he asks. “Will I go to hell?”

“Hmmm…” the woman says, after stumbling through an awkward answer. “I thought you weren’t going to make this hard.”

If this call had been real, the woman says, she would have dissuaded the man from falling for Pascal’s Wager, the argument that it’s better to believe in God because — well, hell is an awfully hot place to spend eternity.

But the call wasn’t real. The man and woman are volunteers training for 1-84-I-DOUBT-IT, believed to be the country’s first helpline for people wrestling with religion, suffering from a loss of faith, or confused about why their son or wife seems to have suddenly embraced atheism.

Founded by the group Recovering From Religion and cobbled together with a small budget, the helpline launched on Friday. Nearly 100 volunteers are ready to field calls 24/7 on the weekends and from 6-12 Central Time on weeknights.Read more
–

:(
—
DHAKA, Bangladesh — A prominent U.S. blogger, known for his writing against religious fundamentalism, has been hacked to death by unidentified attackers in Bangladesh’s capital, police said Friday.

The attack on Avijit Roy, a Bangladesh-born U.S. citizen, took place late Thursday when he and his wife Rafida Ahmed, who was seriously injured in the attack, were returning from a book fair at Dhaka University.

It was not known who was behind the attack, but Roy’s family and friends say he was a prominent voice against religious fanatics and received threats in the past. No groups have claimed the responsibility.

The local police chief, Sirajul Islam, told The Associated Press that the assailants used cleavers to attack Roy and his wife, who is also a blogger.

“Several attackers took part in the attack and at least two assailants hit them directly,” Islam said, adding that two blood-stained cleavers were found after the attack.

Roy had founded a popular Bengali-language blog — Mukto-mona, or Free Mind — in which articles on scientific reasoning and religious extremism featured prominently.Read more

After Dagbladet revealed that the Catholic church has registered unsuspecting persons as members and received public support on the basis of inflated membership figures for several years, County Governor of Oslo and Akershus decided to start an investigation in November.

This morning, Oslo police raided the administration building of Roman Catholic Diocese and two residents this morning in the frame of the fraud allegations.

Oslo Catholic Diocese and two people including the bishop are now charged with aggravated fraud, summing 50 million NOK, said prosecutor Kristin Rusdal to Dagbladet.Read more